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| AD25 candidate Craig Steckler |
ASSEMBLY | 25TH DISTRICT | Former Fremont Police Chief Craig Steckler is offering voters a chance to help him decide which charity he will donate his entire Assembly salary, if he is elected to represent the East Bay’s 25th District.
Steckler, who is among five candidates to replace termed out Assemblymember Bob Wieckowski, has already pledged his potential $90,000 salary to the non-profit, Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE).
An online poll on his campaign website hopes to pledge Steckler’s salary for the second year to four suggested charities. They include Adobe Services, Loaves and Fishes, Drivers for Survivors; Care, Advancement, Respect and Hope (CARH) or another charity of your choice. The poll is open through May 28, the campaign said Wednesday.
“I would donate my Assembly salary if elected, because I believe in public service. I’m running for Assembly to give back, not start a long career in politics,” said Steckler said in a statement. “I’m excited that the community gets a voice in this decision, and we hope it is the start of a longer term dialog about public service and the needs of our communities.” Steckler retired as Fremont’s police chief in 2013 after 21 years in command.
The online strategy is definitely novel, but Steckler will first have to advance past the June 3 primary. But, who will finish in the top two June primary in the 25th District is a toss-up with two weeks to go. Besides Steckler, other candidates include San Jose Councilmember Kansen Chu, Ohlone Community College District Trustee Teresa Cox, Milpitas Councilmember Armando Gomez and Bob Brunton, a former Ohlone Community College Trustee and the lone Republican in the race.
ebcitizen.com 
I wish all elected officials would represent us for free. If they turned out to be worthless at least we wouldn't be paying them for it like we do now.
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He doesn't want to be lumped into an even higher tax bracket. By refusing the salary HE saves himself a hell of a lot of taxes.
It's all about Craig!
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By MW:
Doing the same thing would be an excellent idea for such charlatans, demagogues, big windbags, and world class phonies – er,excuse me, I mean great liberals and wonderful humanitarians – as Dianne Feinstein.
Feinstein and her husband already have a net worth of not less than about one hundred million dollars, and the wealth of herself and her husband has been greatly increasing during her time in the US Senate, and largely due to Feinstein voting for and pushing through programs that enrich and provide contracts extremely lucrative to her husband's business interests.
Even such scumbags as John Gotti were willing to sacrifice and give up some money for PR purposes. For instance, Gotti used to at least once a year throw a huge outdoor party to which absolutely everybody was invited, and it certainly cost him at least tens of thousands per year, and possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, engaging in such PR.
During the Depression of the1930's, Al Capone spent a fortune supporting soup kitchens to provide meals to the homeless and down and out, and that and other charitable endeavors was certainly one of the major reasons Capone was tolerated and even had considerable public support in many quarters.
Whitey Bulger, the major Boston area Mafioso, also plowed back into charity and the community a portion of the money he made through his criminal activities, and which therefore caused him to have a lot of people bought off and to think that Bulger was a fine and wonderful person, and regardless of how many murders he had arranged.
Many of the very biggest South American drug traffickers “prove” to the local populace that they are “extremely wonderful” people by buying acceptance, and such as for instance using a portion of the money they make through their criminal activities to build roads and hospitals, etc.
For decades many of the biggest guys in the Italian mafia have been buying off the local population in certain neighborhoods, and also the local priests, by making large contributions to the church building fund whenever the church wants to construct an addition.
So why can't such phonies, charlatans, demagogues, and already extremely wealthy money grubbing parasites – er. excuse me, I mean great liberals and wonderful humanitarians – as Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, and Nancy Pelosi donate their Congressional salaries to charity, and especially since for Feinstein to donate a salary of about 200K per year would be similar to the average person making a charitable donation of only a few dollars.
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He gets a pension of about $206,000, or about 90% of his $229,000 final year salary. His total compensation, (salary + benefits) was $353,937.58 in 2011.
Not piling a extra $90,000 on top of that seems fair.
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The ONLY reason he is propagandizing this is because he is getting mega $$$$$ for his union police job and later retiring at the top of the heap as chief.
Very unimpressed by this publicity stunt.
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Interesting idea!
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